In 25 years of service as an Army chaplain, Col. Janet Horton, of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, never experienced the kind of hell that she found at ground zero in the Pentagon's center courtyard.
Burned and bloodied people sat or lay on the ground. Women staggered by, their clothes and nylons rent with gaping holes. Rescuers were already working to pull people out when Horton arrived.
As doctors and nurses began treating those who were the most critically injured and in horrific pain, Horton knelt beside the victims to try to allay their fears. She recited the 23rd Psalm. She prayed the Lord's Prayer.
Out of respect to those whose faith might differ from hers, she always asked the victims if they wanted her to pray for them.
"We were on our knees praying with each one of the victims," said Horton, a Christian Scientist.
But Horton, who also served in Bosnia, said she was moved by the compassion people showed for each other in the midst of disaster. Some offered their own garments to people whose clothing had been cut away by emergency teams or lost in the explosion. Others raced to a Pentagon cafeteria gathering up ice and beverages to give to the wounded.
Sometimes she would approach a gravely injured person, only to be told by that person that she should assist someone in worse condition.
"I guess what people may underestimate in the average American is how selfless they are," Horton said.
From "Chaplains Face Survivors' Questions" The Washington Post, September 15, 2001.
